Posts Tagged ‘marketing trends#8217;

¿Cuál ha sido el mejor anuncio de la Superbowl?

Siento adelantarme a mi amigo Jesús Rebollo, pero no puedo dejar de escribir sobre los anuncios que se lanzaron ayer y preguntaros cuál ha sido el mejor.

Seguro que al igual que yo, habréis recibido un buen número de correos y artículos, en el que distintos medios y personas dan su opinión. Que si cuál ha sido el más entretenido, el más ingenioso, el más notorio, el más pobre, etc.

De lo que había visto, claramente me quedaba con el de Audi. Me parecía ingenioso, tenía llegada al público objetivo y encima trasmitía muy bien los valores de marca…

Algo que no ha conseguido este año Bud, que para mí ha sido una gran decepción. Porque aunque como dice el New York Times es ciertamente entrañable, creo que la imagen que transmiten es muy soft y muy alejada de lo que uno espera de esta marca…

Como os decía, me quedaba con Audi, hasta que llegó a mis manos un artículo de Sandro Pozzi, en el que se explicaba la GENIALIDAD (con mayúsculas) de Oreo. Que, aprovechando un apagón de 34 minutos en la final, colgó en Twitter el anuncio que teneís debajo:

Como os podéis imaginar, se ha llevado una de las mejores valoraciones el día después, además un sinfin de RT (14,000 RT el primer minuto). Lo que no es para menos pues evidencia varias cosas:

• La importancia del momento. Las marcas tienen que estar “vivas” y conectar a tiempo real con los consumidores.
• La importancia del marketing digital. Del Social Media en particular, que puede llevar a impactos superiores a los que consiguen las marcas invirtiendo muchos muchos millones (8 millones de US$ de media en la Superbowl).
• La importancia de la creatividad. Puede que cambien los formatos; puede que cambie el consumidor; pero la capacidad de crear e innovar siempre estará ahí.
• La importancia de la simplicidad. Menos es ciertamente más.

Espero vuestros comentarios e impresiones en @ignacio gafo y en @ieweblog.

THINK DIFFERENT!!!

Ignacio Gafo

PS1: Alguno me dirá que el apagón estaba programado. Con todo lo que está ocurriendo hoy, ya me creo que cualquier cosa. Pero esto rozaría lo inconcebible.

PS2: Gracias a mis alumnos del GMBABL y en especial a Adolfo, por despertarme la gusanillo y provocar este post.

In this post, allow me to move away from consumer research and touch upon a Business to Business marketing issue.

An interesting on-line business model was recently brought to my attention: Shopify (www.shopify.com ; or www.shopify.com.mx if you speak Spanish). Shopify is an on-line service, which helps anyone interested create an online store – today. Their site includes a full description of their services (creating and running the store, accepting payments, moving to a mobile store, etc.). In addition, it features success cases of their service, their 3-level pricing scheme, as well as other useful information.

So, why is it different from other online stores? Well, that is exactly the point: IT IS NOT DIFFERENT! It is very similar to many on-line stores.  For instance, if you go to the website of El Corte Ingles (http://www.elcorteingles.es ) you will see more or less the same features for the products that it sells: a description of the product, a few illustrations of how it works, pricing info, upgraded versions of the product, etc.

And why is this similarity striking? Well, simply because Shopify targets business customers, and El Corte Ingles targets consumers… And any marketing professor (including myself) and any marketing textbook (like those I use for teaching) would tell you that these two targets are VERY different. For instance, one of the textbooks that I use (Marketing Management, Kotler and Keller, 14^th global Edition, Pearson, 2012, pp. 206-207) says that some characteristics of B2B markets are:

• Fewer and Larger Buyers. Well, Shopify targets apparently many and not so big clients. If your most expensive products brings you $ 179/ month, you have to have MANY clients.
• Close supplier-customer relationship. Apparently, the closest many of Shopify’s customers have been to it is an extended email exchange…
• Professional buyers: Obviously if a firm can barely afford $100 / month for their on-line shop, it cannot afford having a professional buyer.
• Multiple sales calls: Hm… in this case it seems that the clients are calling shopify, after browsing their website.
• Geographically concentrated customers: Shopify appeals to a global audience.

That, of course, does not necessarily mean that B2B Marketing is fundamentally consumer-izing (check the vid below to see how fundamentals always remain the same).

My take, is that a new form of B2B markets is emerging: One in which the customers resemble closer the mass consumer markets. Such markets may be more important as small business (due to the economic crisis) try to expand their reach. Whether or not sustainable business is possible in these markets remains to be seen. Having that said, practitioners (as is frequently the case) have already sensed and are exploiting this trend, while academics are not yet discussing it – at least not in written form.

But then again, if everything was in textbooks, why would anyone need a Business School?

Antonios (Adoni) Stamatogiannakis, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Marketing
IE Business School – IE University

antonios.stamatogiannakis@ie.edu

Recuerdo una conferencia del Presidente de Phillip Morris en España hará unos dos años. En la misma, hablando del mercado del tabaco, planteó algo que me pareció muy interesante: El mercado estaba cambiando radicalmente, y sólo las empresas que se posicionaran en un extremo (en este caso, superpremium o en precio) iban a sobrevivir; por lo que los que se quedaran en medio iban a quedar en tierra de nadie y desposicionados…

La verdad es que en numerosas ocasiones he podido comprobar cómo dicha afirmación se ha hecho realidad en numerosos sectores, con innumerables marcas desposicionadas en el camino…

Y el otro día, viendo la nueva campaña de Mc Donalds en televisión, no pude evitar recordar esta afirmación… Así, si entramos en la página web de Mc Donalds, amén de las inevitables promociones de venta y de precio, encontramos sorprendentemente este COMPROMISO DE 13 PUNTOS:

01.  Que el 75% DE NUESTRA COMPRA PROCEDA DE PROVEEDORES ESPAÑOLES.

02.  Que nuestra carne 100% VACUNO PROVENGA EN SU MAYORIA DE GANADERÍAS ESPAÑOLAS. Actualmente nos suministran más de 30.000.

03. Invertir en la apertura de más de 60 NUEVOS RESTAURANTES en los próximos 3 años con una INVERSIÓN CERCANA A 160 MILLONES DE EUROS.

04.  Incentivar la AGRICULTURA LOCAL, INCREMENTANDO la compra de fruta y verdura procedente principalmente de la HUERTA ESPAÑOLA.

05.  Seguir aplicando voluntariamente CERTIFICACIONES EXTERNAS como la Q de Calidad, que avalen la gestión de calidad que ofrecemos en nuestros restaurantes.

06. Generar 3.000 NUEVOS PUESTOS DE TRABAJO en 3 años que se sumarán a los más de 22.000 EMPLEOS ACTUALES.

07. Fomentar la ESTABILIDAD EN EL EMPLEO, mediante el mantenimiento de un 90% de nuestra contratación INDEFINIDA en las plantillas de nuestros RESTAURANTES.

08. Desarrollar profesionalmente a NUESTROS EMPLEADOS, para facilitar su PROMOCIÓN LABORAL. EL 100% de la GERENCIA de nuestros restaurantes procede de PROMOCIÓN INTERNA.

09. Apostar por la CONCILIACIÓN LABORAL Y PERSONAL y la IGUALDAD DE OPORTUNIDADES PARA TODOS NUESTROS EMPLEADOS, que nos ha sido reconocida por el certificado de Empresa Familiarmente Responsable (EFR ^®).

10. Ayudar y acoger a FAMILIAS CON NIÑOS ENFERMOS construyendo dos nuevas CASAS RONALD McDONALD en España que se sumarán a las ya existentes en BARCELONA Y MÁLAGA, lo que permitirá cubrir la demanda de unas 1.000 familias anualmente.

11. Seguir apoyando a la FUNDACIÓN INFANTIL RONALD McDONALD® con una aportación mínima anual de 1 MILLÓN DE EUROS para contribuir al bienestar de los niños y sus familias.

12. Comunicar y continuar trabajando en el PERFIL NUTRICIONAL DE NUESTROS PRODUCTOS, teniendo como objetivo REDUCIR SAL, GRASAS Y AZÚCARES.

13. Fomentar el CONSUMO DE FRUTAS Y VERDURAS, a través de nuestras CAMPAÑAS DE TELEVISIÓN dirigidas a niños.

Un enfoque arriesgado pero inteligente, con el que tratan de quitarse la imagen de “comida chatarra”  y demás apelativos con los que normalmente se asocia a la cadena americana. Vamos, campaña de Branding con efectos a medio – largo plazo, en medio de una crisis sin paliativos y enfoques a corto…

Enfoque que, como os imagináis, contrasta al 100% con el de BURGER KING que, ante tal declaración de intenciones lo tiene claro: Carne, carne y más carne . Que si Whopper triple, que si Whopper en todas las varidades , que si Menú Burger King XXL, …Back to basics en toda regla (back to carne en este caso), aprovechando el devaneo de la competencia…

Dicho lo cual, you make your choice:  “EL SABOR DEL KING” de Burger King o “COMPARTIMOS MAS DE LO QUE IMAGINAS” DE Mc Donalds. ¡Lo que quieras!, pero en un extremo…

¿Y el resto? No lo sé la verdad. Hace ya tiempo que no sabemos de Wendys y semejantes…

Espero vuestros comentarios en @ieweblog o en @ignaciogafo.

THINK DIFFERENT!!!

Ignacio Gafo

The I-Phone 5 was just launched some days ago, and this time I decided hold on to my thoughts and start analyzing the market reaction. Interestingly, when reading the opinion of different specialized media, all experts seem to agree with the headlines from The Guardian: “Apple’s iPhone 5 is brilliant – but not best in class“.

This is indeed a very interesting statement, considering that objectively speaking, the new model incorporates a big deal of new functionalities and improvements:

Among others: Improved phone design (larger screen, thinnier, less weight), better performance (much better processor), functionalities (such as new software for pictures)  and updated operating system (new one incorporated).

SO WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

Is it that the product was not properly introduced by Tim Cook?

Is it that competition has performed better than Apple and now you need a real breakthrough to make the difference?

Is it that they have mismanaged the communication and have filtered in advance too many features?

Is it that we are suffering the Jobs´syndrome and still need some evidence from Tim Cook that he can reivent the phone again?

Or is it simply that the expectations with Apple are so high that is almost impossible to be up to them?

 HOW DID THE STOCKMARKET REACT?

Not sure what were the reasons behind, but upon considering them, one would expect the stockmarket to drop Apple stockprice significanty, as long as they have been unable to meet expections…

But guess what has happened? Shares of Apple (AAPL) topped their day-old all-time high, hitting $696.82 Friday amid strong enthusiasm for the iPhone 5.

Ongoing speculation with Apple?

Different vision of investors versus specialized media (and techies)?

Not sure again about  the responses, but we certainly seem to have a mismatch between experts and investors..

HOW WILL THE I-PHONE PERFORM IN THE MID AND LONG TERM?

In my view, it will keep on leading worldwide sales within the smartphone segment and will keep on building brand loyalty for Apple, at least for the rest of this year.

What will come then is unclear to me. I am with The Guardian that the product is not a breakthrough but, if we ask the core Apple customers what they think, we might find out surprising responses that justify the stockmarket boost… Who knows, maybe non-product features are are more relevant than those specialists thought…

I look forward for your views and comments @ieweblog and @ignaciogafo.

THINK DIFFERENT!!!

Ignacio Gafo

Vuelta a los orígenes. A la sencillez. A saber qué hacemos y por qué lo hacemos. Entender las auténticas necesidades y anhelos de nuestros consumidores y estar atentos a escuchar lo que nos dicen.

Desde hace unos días estoy leyendo la biografía de S. Jobs. Seguro que muchos de vosotros ya lo habréis hecho pero hay 3 elementos que me están resultado impactantes:

1.- La obsesión por el detalle como un elemento clave en el desarrollo de la experiencia del cliente con la marca en donde la estética no cumple una función formal sino esencial en la creación de la marca

2.- Priorizar la máxima sencillez. En cada etapa del proceso de contacto con el cliente.  Si algo es ornamental o sobra, hay que eliminarlo. Si aporta un valor, se potencia.

3.- Este espíritu debe imperar en toda la organización y en todos los productos. El mejor ejemplo de ello es cuando quitaron la pantalla de los iPod Shuffle. O cuando apreciamos el diseño de sus tiendas con su famosa “Genius Bar”

Al hilo con el concepto de la sencillez, este mes HBR acaba de publicar un artículo titulado “To keep your costumers, keep it simple” (Patrick Spenner & Karen Freema; HBR Mayo 2012) en donde presentan un estudio muy interesante que refleja cómo muchas veces las marcas pretendemos saber qué quiere el consumidor sin realmente entender las razones de sus necesidades.

En este sentido destacan el caso de la percepción que tenemos de los clientes y su experiencia en la web. Las marcas piensan una de las razones básicas para entrar en su web es para buscar información o para “sentirse conectado” cuando la realidad es que el consumidor está interesado, mayoritariamente, por buscar descuentos, comprar productos y por saber más de los productos. El concepto de “sentirse conectado” es realmente secundario.

Este podría ser un claro ejemplo de lo que Lewitt llamó Marketing Myopia. Al tomar nuestras decisiones en función de lo que creemos que nuestros consumidores quieren, acabamos generando frustración en ellos y abandonan nuestra marca.

En uno de los libros más interesantes sobre retailing (Inside the mind of the shopper – H. Sorensen) ya comentaba que en un experimento realizado en Wall-Mart habían detectado que cuando un cliente entra en una tienda y encuentra lo que está buscando en menos de 1 minuto, su estancia y su gasto en la tienda aumenta en relación con otros puntos de venta en los que el consumidor tiene que buscar lo que desea. Y la base de este concepto es nuevamente la sencillez y la claridad.

Todos hemos tenido la desastrosa experiencia de ir a una tienda y buscar durante varios minutos sin que nada ni nadie nos ayude a encontrar lo que buscamos. En ese momento nos agobiamos, nos enfadamos y salimos corriendo de la tienda. Hoy, gracias a la capacidad que tenemos de saber exactamente qué busca un cliente, está en nuestra mano facilitar y reducir “el ruido” que genera en nuestros consumidores la incertidumbre de saber si encontrará lo que desea.

Podría ser peor. Y para eso os dejo este video…

¿Qué pensáis vosotros? ¿Cómo reducís la incertidumbre de vuestro cliente?

Espero vuestros comentarios en el blog y os invito a seguirme en @jesusrebollog

Feliz jueves!

Jesús Rebollo

PD. BIENVENIDA CLAIRE

Did you know all the changes going on?

Are you prepared to cope with the new world coming?

Have you changed your mindset and turned it into a digital and flexible one?

In case you are not fully aware of all the changes + opportunities that are arising, please take a look at this video:

The World as we knew it is disppearing. Time to evolve or die.

Welcome to the New World!!!

THINK DIFFERENT!!!

Ignacio Gafo

PS: Thanks to Diego Torrico for sharing this video today at our Vodafone kick off. It was really inspiring.

Today, I would like to share with you a real story in order to break one of the most common myths around marketing.

The story, that was published in the Washington Post and can be found in social media says:

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context? If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

The experiment, that was meant to be a social one, can also be applied to the Marketing Area and be used to breaking a myth: The one that states that a great product enough in itself to succeed. As the story shows, this is far from reality, for you can have a great product and fail completely with its commercialization. Why? Because Marketing goes beyond Product Management. Specifically, in Marketing we are doing three things:

• Value creation
• Value communication
• Value delivery

…to the right target group

The Marketing Process starts with the selection of the target group and then follows up with the rest of the phases. Because:

• We might have the best product in the world, but will not work if we have chosen the wrong target group (the violin play for instance, is not going to be appreciated by everybody).
• Even if we have the right product and targeted segment combination it will also fail to succeed if we do not manage properly both the communication and delivery.

Thus, make sure to find the right balance between all these variables if you want to succeed and be watchful! The next time you listen to someone playing a violin at the tube, he might be Joshua Bell running another test in your town…

THINK DIFFERENT!!!

Ignacio Gafo

19 January 2012: Kodak files for bankruptcy protection.

I do not have words to express how I felt when reading it. Past memories came to my mind. They brought me to my early years in , back in the  mind 90s, where all the Photography Industry was dominated by this american company. Some of us were selling cameras, or films, or printing solutions but, above all of us, was KODAK. They were playing is a separate league. Not even Sony catching up with them! You just had to go to the Photokina Fair at Dusseldord and compare the size of the stands: The one from Kodak at least 4 times the size of oursat Canon!

How is it possible that a company that came up with the first film camera in 1883, launched the first commercial camera and actually was fully dominating the Photo Industry in the late 80s, came to this end?

You may claim that they did not have the right know-how to cope with the digitalization of the photo industry, but you may turn out to be wrong! Kodak actually invented the first digital camera as soon as 1975, and had the capabilities of making a massive commercial launch of the digital camera as soon as 1992. That would have meant that they would have found a completely new market the develop with no known competition at that point but, as Kodak recognized later on, they did not proceed because of fears (some people term in lack of guts) of cannibalizing their film business…

I know positively that it is easy to be critical after things have happened. I presume that most of us would feel comfortable in a situation where we have more than 70% of the market and attain really high margins on our business. Market leadership is great, but experience shows that it might work as a sort of organizational chloroform that makes uslay down, relax and stop stretching our minds… And, as it has happened to Kodak, there will be a moment where we want to awaken and realize it is too late…

In the case of Kodak, they rejected initially the digital initiative because of the referred risk of cannibalization and met a situation in the late 90s, in which japanese companies like Canon, Sony and Nikon, pushed aggressively the commercialization of digital cameras. It actually took them some years to come up with digital cameras with decent specs and affordable pricing, but they eventually did the breakthough much sooner than expected in the early 2000. Kodak tried then to react and introduced some OEM models while trying to develop their manufacturing capabilities. The result was a good pool of patents (that are by the way the most valuable asset that the company has) and a manufacturing camera capability that came too late: At the time they had them, the market was already dominated and somehow massified by japanese brands…

After some desperate struggle and internal changes, they finally decided to enter into the printing business. They believed they could revolutionize the printing industry with new state-of-the-art technologies, but again brought them in too late: The printing market was also massified and, to make matters worse, they found a new competitors really well positioned and with deep pockets: Hewlett Packard.

The rest of the story was actually business as usual:

- Competition became stronger and the low end business of the camera industry was absorbed by a new market and technology (the phone indsutry).

- The stock price plummetted down to 0,36 US$ (from 30US$ in 2004!).

- They changed their managing team several times and hired desperately a digital expert as CEO with the hope of relaunching the business.

- They laid off a big chunk of their labor force, ending up prior to the bankruptcy with only 19,000 employeess (there was a point in the 90s where they had 145,000 people!).

And we end up with the key questions:

• HOW CAN YOU FORESEE THIS HAPPENING?
• HOW CAN YOU DECIDE IF A MOVEMENT IS LEADING TO CANNIBALIZATION OR SALVATION?
• HOW TO AVOID LEADING COMPANIES TO RELAX? HOW TO INTRODUCE THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF PRESSURE FOR INNOVATION? HOW TO INTRODUCE INTERNAL COMPETITION?

Not sure that we can find a response. However,  make sure to learn from Kodak and avoid relaxing too much while leading the market. Tough times will surely come!

Look forward for your views and suggestions.

THINK DIFFERENT!!!

Ignacio Gafo

PS: To be continued with more leading companies in short. I leave up to you the list of candidates .

When thinking about what we need to get out of this crisis I came to the conclusión that a combination of three things:

1. Innovation

2. Hard work

3. Patience

I guess I do not need to extend on Innovation.It is basically trying to do things differently. It applies to every single thing we do and incluyes every single (marketing) variable we can think about ,be it product, brand positioning, segmentation, Business model, etc.

Successful innovation goes hand in hand with hard working and a systematic approach.  We cannot expect to find Golden Egg at once (not even Jobs was able to do so!) It is the result of stretching our minds and capabilities, and enter into a trial and error process.

Results will eventually come., if we have enough patience. The innovative process will help up develop new capabilites + know-how + competitive advantages, that will come at the right time.

Today I happened to get this fantastic video that resumes very precisely all  I have been trying to convey:

Remember: If you´ve never failed, you´ve never lived.  And what is more: You will never be able to make the difference.

MY BEST WISHES FOR 2012. It must be the year of the recovery.

Be brave. Be Innovative. Be a hard worker. Be patient. And above all, enjoy!

THINK DIFFERENT!!!

Ignaco Gafo

In previous posts we have spoken about Celebrity Based Advertising, which is basically when a company pays a well-known person for advertising its products.

The reasoning would be that the usage by the celebrity of your products will boost your sales and strengthen your brand image, by associating your products with the spontaneous values he-she is associated with. Although somehow risky, specially if the personality is unstable or happens to be really different from what you thought, it usually works fine and is a business as usual practice for leading brands such as Nespresso, Nike and Lóreal Paris.

So far nothing new that you were not aware of. But what would you do if all the sudden you find a popular celebrity that is representing something contrary to your values, using it? What would be your reaction? How would you manage it?

This is exactly the situation that Abercrombie and Fitch faced when Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and the rest of a show called “The Jersey Shore” started to wear A&F clothes. Situation, you can guess from the pictures below, is far from ideal for an aspirational clothing brand.

The result?

A&F agreed to pay to Mr Sorrentino and the producers of the show a significant amount of money for stop using their brand. The terms have not been disclosed, but some analysts are even betting that the contract obliges the actors to use clothes from competitors of A&F… Whichever the case, the company explained that ” the association with the clothing was contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand” and had been able to go for a win-win situation.

Have they gone too far?

Not sure what I would have done if faced a similar situation. But they seem to have managed the situation pretty well and obtained by the way, quite a significant publicity through it.

Only challenge though would be what to do when a Sorrentino-like player, also starts wearing A&F… A new business model might be coming: ANTI-CELEBRITY BASED ADVERTISING.

THINK DIFFERENT!!!

Ignacio Gafo

PS: Ths George for the news.